Response to Tom McMillin's Mailer: His Pants Are on Fire!

This time of year we get a lot of political postcards and some of them do stretch the truth but the one I saw today from Tom McMillin earns a “Liar Liar Pants on Fire” award. In bold letters he says “When some politicians in Lansing wanted to tax your pension, Tom McMillin said “No.””

Really? Perhaps they didn’t hear you Tom because it was recorded as a “yes” vote. Don’t believe me? Go to www.michiganvotes.org and check out HB 4361 and HB4362, you can also read an in depth analysis of the fiscal impacts of this bill.

Now you can argue the pros and cons of this bill but the reality is that it DID raise taxes on many seniors. It also raised taxes on low income working poor, predominately working women with children. Now, some may say he was doing what he had to do to put the economy back on track- but that isn’t what he campaigned on. He signed Grover Norquist’s pledge to never raise taxes. And now he is just flat out lying by saying he didn’t raise taxes on seniors. Now to be fair, he points out in his flyer that if you were 67 or older your taxes didn’t go up (some of your exemptions may have gone away so they may go up in the end) but if you are under 67 and receiving a pension it may be subject to taxes. So, if you took an early buyout or were encouraged to retire early, too bad!

What burns my britches is that he campaigns the issue of not raising taxes but when in office he does another and then tries to pretend it didn’t happen. Many people won’t know the full impact of this tax increase until the spring when they file their tax returns which would be too late to boot McMillin out of office if he was re-elected for his final two year term as State Representative.

Please examine the records carefully before voting this November. www.Michiganvotes.org is a great tool to see what your legislators are doing and the status of many bills. It is a valuable resource for clarity in a cluttered world.

I have also attached a copy of the mailer.